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I have a theory about Donald Trump and the 2024 election.
In his roughly 700 years of presidential campaigning, Trump has always done things a little differently. He shunned the retail politics and door knocking of past establishment campaigns in favor of a media strategy that revolved around building himself up as a cult of personality figure. That means countless rallies where he offered up his rambling thoughts to adoring crowds, fawning interviews from bootlickers about how great he is, and opening multiple revenue streams to keep his flock sending in the cash to help fund either the campaign or his own legal issues.
It worked in 2016 because nobody had ever seen anything like it, the media had no idea how to cover it, and because he was running against a candidate in Hillary Clinton that the far right hate machine had spent three decades claiming was the spawn of Satan. It didn’t work in 2020, and the Trump inner circle was so shocked that they took their disbelief and used it to fuel a coup attempt.
There are still six weeks until the election, but from most of the evidence we’re seeing, it’s not going to work this time either. Kamala Harris is polling well nationally, and has small but consistent leads in the states she needs to have leads in. She’s crushing Trump in fundraising, Trump’s get out the vote strategy is negligible, numerous high-profile Republicans have either failed to endorse Trump or outright endorsed Harris, he’s getting dragged down by horrible down ballot candidates in states he needs to win, he’s doing far fewer rallies and far more podcast interviews to a walled-off constituency of young men, his lackies are laying the groundwork to contest close elections and convince Nebraska to pull a last second rule change that would net him one electoral vote, and his fundraising efforts are much more centered around filling up his own coffers rather than anything to do with the Republican Party.
These are not the actions and attitudes of a campaign that believes it’s going to win. And my theory is that everyone in the Trump campaign, including Trump himself, have given up on believing they’re going to win. Instead, they’re running the “everything must go” campaign, hoping to wheeze over the finish line by making grandiose promises Trump can’t possibly keep, making as much money for themselves as possible, and sewing the seeds of doubt over Harris winning fairly. A Harris win might not result in another January 6th, but it could definitely be the foundation of a lucrative next stage for the MAGA movement – one not built around Trump as a politician, but as the elder statesman of a Republican Party built in his image, and one that features any number of acolytes fighting it out for his approval to take the mantle in 2028 and pretend that the last two elections were stolen.
Trump himself has more or less given up on campaigning with any kind of rigor or consistency. Whereas in 2016 he was having rallies once a day, sometimes twice, he’s barely having them twice a week now. His campaign has said that they aren’t necessary at this point, and his supporters will point to him nearly having been assassinated at one in July. But the decline started before then, and it’s easy to see why he’s no longer having many – he’s considerably older and less energetic, they aren’t as well attended, aren’t covered with the attention they used to draw, and Trump supporters who do attend tend to leave early. Why wouldn’t they, given that he’s been running for president for a decade and has nothing left to say.
More and more, Trump’s campaign rhetoric depends on making either ridiculous accusations (“Haitian immigrants are eating pets,” etc) or more recently on him promising truly ludicrous things that are never going to happen. Recent Trump rallies and interviews have promised 50% cuts to peoples’ energy bills and car insurance, food prices dropping from massive taxes on imported food, child care costs dropping through tariffs, IVF being free, removal of taxes on tips and overtime, credit card interest rates capped at 10%, restoring the uncapped state and local income tax deduction that Trump himself capped with his 2017 tax cuts, and most recently, a manned mission to Mars by 2028.
While a few of these are decent ideas – the no tax on tips thing has been kicked around Republican circles for a while – most of them are impossible because Trump has no power to enact them. Moreover, these are the sorts of “free goodies” giveaways that Mitt Romney built his 2012 campaign around fighting against, and which Republicans in Congress would fight to their last breath. Trump loses nothing by promising them, because they’re impossible promises to keep.
But they’re a way to get people who don’t understand how anything works interested in Trump, because hey, who doesn’t want their credit card interest rates capped? The credit card industry doesn’t want it, and that’s because it would essentially destroy anyone’s ability to get credit unless they already have sparkling credit scores. But if it’s never going to happen, who cares?
While the bossman is out promising every Trump voter a free TV and a subscription to Sports Illustrated, the rest of his core ticket is out there hitting the bricks and winning hearts and minds, right? No. JD Vance is still embroiled in the Haitian pet eating hoax fiasco while continuing to humiliate himself in TV hits. Melania Trump is focused solely on shilling her memoir, and has made just a few appearances for Trump, at several of which she was personally paid for. And Usha Vance? Never heard of her.
But if Melania is getting paid for the campaign, then it’s peanuts compared to what Donald is taking in personally. And that’s where the other part of the “everything must go” campaign really comes into play. Trump has spent an extraordinary amount of time shilling products with his name and face on them, with the money going not to the campaign, the RNC, or anyone else who might use it to help get Republicans elected. Instead the money just goes to him, presumably to spend on legal fees, or whatever else he feels like buying.
Just in the past few weeks, Trump launched a crypto currency that his two adult sons will run, announced $100 Trump-branded silver coins that are only worth $30, and published a glossy photo book of his time in the White House that includes a disturbingly high number of pictures of Trump with Kim Jong Un. All of this goes on the same groaning merch table that features Trump Bibles, Trump sneakers, and all of the other Trump branded products that the man has sold over the years. Not to mention Melania’s memoir, which is currently in the top 100 of books on Amazon ahead of its publication date in October.
None of the money from any of this shit is going to the campaign. Trump’s revocable trust owns the coins and sneakers, the photo book is being published by Don Jr.’s company, and the crypto is the product of a fly by night company called World Liberty Financial, about which nobody seems to know anything. While Trump has, in the past, claimed his campaign is self-funded, that’s never really been true, and he didn’t even make the same pledge for 2024. And there’s no indication that any of the money from any of these ventures is going to his cash-strapped and increasingly doomed bid for another term.
Beyond the low-effort campaigning and obvious last-second cash grabbing, there’s just the fact that none of these people seem confident at all. Trump allies are already screwing around with vote counting and election administration laws, while Trump has relentlessly whined that undocumented immigrants are going to vote in massive numbers to get Harris over the top and that mail in voting is going to be rigged. In a recent interview with a fawning antivaccine sycophant, he seemed positively morose as he declared that if he lost again in 2024 he wouldn’t run for a 4th time. Where is the fight from Mr. Fight Fight Fight? Where is the confidence from the world’s most insanely overconfident man? Nowhere.
Sure, maybe all of this doesn’t mean anything and Trump will pull the same inside straight he pulled in 2016 and win. The polls are still close in every swing state, and it’s not as if anyone in Trump’s core of cultists is going to walk away from him. Hell, they love the grift and the scamming and the ridiculous promises. Trump could win the most low-effort and scam-laden campaign in history simply because the Electoral College is stupid and overvalues some voters and undervalues others.
But that’s starting to look slightly less likely. And Trump and his people aren’t stupid. They have access to internal polling and proprietary data, and if they really are losing ground in key swing states, they’ll know it. And rather than fight for it, they seem to have resigned themselves to this being their last grab at the wingnut welfare spout. So you can promise people Mars and free stuff if you don’t ever intend to keep it. And you can sell coins and crypto if you have fans who don’t care where the money goes.
Ultimately, an “everything must go” campaign ends with everything having gone. And when it does, when there are no more coins to hawk or crypto to shill, you can always just light a match and burn it all down.
Mike Rothschild 